Reading, Not Just For Beaches

Afterthought Princess Diaries

Why did The Princess Diaries resonate with me so much as a teenager? Mostly, because of Mia’s friends. Her close group of friends, I’m trying not to sound like a cliche book nerd, but they helped me feel not so alone. Let me explain, as a teenager many of my friends were flighty. As an adult, I realized that most of the people I thought were my friends really weren’t in retrospect. One of the major parts of the series is Mia’s friends. She has her friends Lily Moscovitz, Ling-Su Wong, and Shameeka Taylor around her a good amount of the time. After her secret about being a princess becomes common knowledge, and her best friend Lilly stops talking to her, Mia befriends Tina Hakim Baba. Tina is the the type of friend I would have liked since she is the perfect book nerd. Between the portrayal of her friends and the conversational style of Mia’s journal, it’s hard not to feel like a personal friend of hers by the end of the book. All of these girls made me feel like I was a part of a squad. *I don’t think “squad” was a thing when I was teenager, but whatever.*